when it was the night for the wages, Bessie came home with three packages, a new oilcloth for the table, a remnant from a lace curtain to tack around the sink, to hide away the rusty pipes, and a ten-cent roll of gold paper for the chandelier to cover up the fly dirt that was so thick you couldn’t scrub it away.
Mashah wanted to go to hear the free music in the park, but Bessie begged her to stay home. “Help me only, this once, to shine up the house a little. You, too, will feel good if somebody should come in and find the house looks decent, like by other people.”
And so excited was Bessie to clean up the house that she made us pull out everything to the middle of the room and scrub out the corners and under the bed. And when we packed all the junk away where it wouldn’t show itself, the crowded kitchen got bigger and there was more room to move around without knocking things over.
And when we tacked the lace curtain around the sink, and fixed fancy the chandelier with the gold paper, and we spread out the new, white oilcloth on the table, it looked like a new house.
We were sitting like company, taking pleasure in our new, cleaned-up kitchen. Ach! I was thinking to myself, if only we didn’t have to pull out the torn bedding from its hiding place to sleep—the rags to dress ourselves—if only we didn’t have to dirty up the new whiteness of the oilcloth with the eating, then it would shine in our house always like a palace. It’s only when poor people begin to eat and sleep and dress themselves that the ugliness and dirt begins to creep out of their black holes.
Just then, Mother came in. She looked around, her eyes jumping out of her head. “What happened!” she cried. “Gold shines in our house! Lace hangs on our walls!” Then she touched the white oilcloth on the table as if she was afraid to touch it with her hard-worked hand. “White marble to eat on!”
“It’s too grand for every day. Quick only! Let’s cover up the oilcloth with newspapers and save the lace curtain for company.”
“No!” Bessie stamped her foot like a new person. “We won’t cover up the beautiful whiteness. Now that we’re working ourselves up, let’s have it beautiful for ourselves, not only for company.”
“Nu—nu—don’t fly away with yourselves in fairyland,” laughed Mother. “We’re poor people yet. And poor people got to save——”
“Save—save!” cried the new Bessie. “I’m sick of saving and slaving to choke myself in the dirt. I want to live while I’m yet alive.”
We opened wide our eyes to give a look on Bessie. What had suddenly happened to her? Father called her the burden-bearer, because she was always with her nose in the earth slaving for the family. And now she suddenly wanted to lift up her head in the world and live.
Mother threw her hands up. “Have it your way! American children always want things over their heads.”
The next evening, when we came home, Mother was away at a sick neighbor’s that was dying. And Father was yet in the synagogue. Fania never had time to wait for supper on the evenings she went to night school. So she grabbed a piece of bread and herring and, still eating it, hurried downstairs, where her young man was waiting for her to take her to school.
Bessie hurried to get the supper and rushed Mashah and me to eat it quick. I was wondering why Bessie was so excited to get the supper, as if she was starving hungry, and yet didn’t eat much herself. All the time she gave quick glances on Mashah and quickly turned her eyes away when Mashah looked up.
“I’ll wash the dishes, Mashah, if you want to go out,” said Bessie, the minute we were done eating.
“But it’s raining,” said Mashah.
“Then why don’t you go the Grand Street vaudeville?”
“I haven’t the money.”
Then think only! Bessie took from her stocking a quarter. “Here, you got it.”
Mashah took the money and stared on it hard, as if to see if it was lead. Then looking upon Bessie with her innocent, wondering eyes, she asked, “What makes you so good to me all of a sudden?”
“Oh, well——” Bessie got red and looked away. “Oh, well—you stayed in last night to help fix up the house, so I thought you’d want to go somewhere.”
Mashah didn’t need to be begged to go to the theatre. She grabbed her hat and coat and out she went.
The minute the door closed behind Mashah, Bessie pushed the dirty dishes under the sink behind the curtain. With the quickness of a cat she jumped on the bed. She grabbed the hanger with Mashah’s pink dress, that was covered around with a white sheet, like a holy thing. Crazy with excitement, she pulled off her skirt and waist. And, like lightning, the pink princess dress was over her head.
“Quick, Sara,” she called, “help me. I can’t squeeze my arms into the sleeves.”
“Oi weh! Mashah will kill us,” I cried.
“I got to have it. I got to look nice tonight. Somebody—a man is coming.”
The dress that slipped on so easy on Mashah’s thin shape stuck on Bessie in the middle. But somehow, by the two of us pulling it together she could squeeze her arms through the tight sleeves.
“Hook it only faster,” she begged.
I tried to push together the hooks, but they were too far apart.
“It’ll choke you to wear it,” I said, worn out from pulling. “Can’t you see it ain’t big enough?”
“It’s got to be big enough.” And Bessie stood up on her toes and blew out all her breath, and she squeezed herself with her hands till I could pull together the hooks one at a time. But it was so tight, where every hook was came a wrinkle. It made her shape stick out so funny that I begged her: “Better put back on your old skirt and waist that you wear to the shop, because in this tight dress it sticks out so your fatness.”
“But every day he sees me in the shop, in that same old skirt and waist. I want him to see me in something different. I want to brighten myself up to him.”
“But it don’t brighten you like Mashah because Mashah got red cheeks and——”
Bessie pushed me aside, and ran over to Mashah’s looking-glass, and began fixing her hair. But she was so nervous and excited the comb fell out from her hand. And when she bent down to pick it up—crack! burst open the seam on the side of the pink dress!
Just then there was a knocking on the door. And Bessie ran into the bedroom to pin together the ripped seam.
When the knocking came again, I opened the door. There was a man. He had a starched shirt on, with a white starched collar on his neck, and a gold chain across his checked vest.
“Is Bessie Smolinsky here?” he asked.
“Right away she’ll come!” I said. And I showed him to Father’s chair with a cushion to sit on.
Then Bessie came out, her eyes burning out of her head, her cheeks redder than Mashah’s, and her right arm held to the side, like pasted there, to cover up where she pinned herself together.
She shook hands
